


Asterism of Two Stars, Third Pending

by EmeliaK



Category: BanG Dream! (Anime), BanG Dream! Girl's Band Party! (Video Game)
Genre: F/F, a low-paced morning, also pancakes, and some working out being worked up, some idle chatter, vibe like a dawn mist indoors
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-17
Updated: 2019-04-17
Packaged: 2020-01-15 07:34:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,937
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18494311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EmeliaK/pseuds/EmeliaK
Summary: Moca and Lisa make an early-morning breakfast.





	Asterism of Two Stars, Third Pending

**Author's Note:**

> (T, but nothing explicit. Enjoy!)

Wisps, the barest ideas of daylight, are fading in through the curtains.

And at an hour way too early by virtue of being way too late, something's _finally_ winding down. "Ahhh, god, I love you, babe."

How would Moca describe this? She's being sandwiched between her sheets and her fellow employee, whom she is separated from by a thin layer of nothing.

Y'know. Putting it tastefully.

"Babe? I ain't a baby, Lis. I got, like... big growths in me."

"What's that about, Moca? Did you get pregnant? Ooh, are they mine?"

"Oh. Nah. I actually was not conscious I just said that. Why, you thinking about wanting my kids?"

"Yeah, no way. One of you's already too many mouths to feed, girl."

"Heh-heh... speakin' of feeding mouths. You want yours fed?"

"Jesus, are you offering second helpings now? Or, well, more like fifth, but..."

"Oho. Imai, you dog, you. Uh. Actually, I'm headin' down to the kitchen. Methinks it's brekkie time."

"Brekkie, huh? It's, like..." Lisa glances at Moca's little bedside clock, squinting to see the hands properly. "Half four, though."

"Is it only? I thought more time woulda passed... gotta milk the experience next time some, then."

"That's enough of your 'experience' for one sesh, Moca. I think everything from my waist down is dead."

"Aha, but'cha know what they say. Most important ingredient in cooking's love. An' I got plenty of your love an' then some outta you just n--"

"Okay, okay! Let's have that breakfast, huh? I guess I am kinda hungry, actually, and I guess practice isn't until the day after, uh... today? I guess it's today, although it's also kinda tomorrow. C'mon, Moca, you've got me all mixed up keeping me this late!"

"I am gllllllad to be of service. One today-is-tomorrow breakfast, comin' right up."

 

 

* * *

 

 

Clothing? On properly? Pfft. Sounds overrated. Right here and now come shuffling in two all-night souls, and what they're wearing barely even passes for "thrown back on".

"Welcome... to the kitchen."

"What're we making?"

"A lil' culinary spread I like to call the Manchu Han Imperial Feast."

"Ahaha. C'mon, what's it really, girl?"

"I was thinking some, uh, some American-style pancakes, orrrr..." Moca cracks open the fridge. "Huh. Sky's the limit, actually. Parents musta hit the shops yesterday or somethin'. Lucky us, not havin' to make do with, like, bacon with missing parts or somethin', like all those times two sleep-deprived idiots throw together somethin' from a fridge fulla nothin'."

"How does bacon have missing parts? I mean, that asides, though..." Lisa peeks round the door to peek inside, brushing her head over Moca's shoulder and into her face. "Wow, seriously. Jeez, this is a stocked fridge if ever I saw it. Really gets me, uh... Mocaing, is that the term?"

"Daaaamn, Lis. You got it. Oughta take one of those vocab certify-ey exams."

"Woah, these cupboards, too..." Moca's no stranger to Lisa peeking through the pantry, in _any_ of the ways that can be taken, so lets her do her plainly-superior-cooking-sense-based whirlwind evaluation thing.

"Well, Lis? Whatcha want the Big Aoba to make?"

"I want... mmmm..." Lisa steps back from the cupboards, fingers to her lips.

"Not somethin' too easy, Lis. Really gotta hit me with that latent-powers-awakenin' action task."

"Mmmmm... nah, the pancakes sound pretty good, actually."

"Yeah, sure." That's milk, eggs, butter... flour, baking powder, sugar. And kind of a little salt, Moca guesses. Toppings can be maple syrup and a lil' bit of some fruit. What fruits have the Aobas got in stock today...?

Apples... and peaches. Neat. Fruit compote.

All those go one by one onto the island table, homely lit by an early morning glow, which drifts warmly from the closed blinds of the kitchen.

Moca pulls out two glass mixing bowls from a cupboard down under, a whisk from one drawer, and a bunch of spoons from another.

"Want me to sous-chef?"

"Mmmmyeah, I gotta melt some butter for this. You know where the pots 'n' stuff are, right?" Moca spoons off a good hunk of butter as she asks.

"Sure, this one--" Lisa finds the plates and glasses. "Nope, not that one."

"Next over."

"Yep." Lisa pulls the non-stick saucepan out, flicking a gas burner on and beginning to heat. Moca hands off the butter to Lisa.

"How's the weather been, Lis?" Dry ingredients: about, like... a mug and a half of flour...

"Pfff. So-so. Oh, night before, actually? It suddenly started raining while Yukina and me were talking. Got us both a little wet, but no colds, so we're safe. I mean, I think." ...a good few big spoons of sugar, a lil' teaspoon of salt, and two teaspoons of the baking powder. Moca sets aside that bowl.

"You think, huh? What if we both come down with one now?" Wet ingredients: roughly the same amount of milk as the flour...

"C'mon, colds don't take that long to kick in." ...crack in two eggs...

"You never know. Could be a new deadly strain. We'll be patient zeroes for the zombie apocalypse." ...and now to wait for the butter.

In the meantime, Moca brings out a second saucepan, which she splashes just a bit of water in from the tap (like, a heaped spoon's worth... hell yeah, a heaped spoon of water), humming her beloved Tsunagu, Soramoyou into a non-linear mess as she does so, and sets that (the saucepan, not the song) on the unlit burner next to Lisa's buttery hotness.

Lisa's been making thinking noises; in the tired-and-up-late haze, turning a hypothetical situation over in her head takes a slow and steady pace. "So... are we dead? Or are we the first zombies? The... creepy rotting kind, or the kind that you'd dress up for on Halloween? Ooh, are we sexy zombies?"

"I'm down for sexy zombies." Lisa bemusedly imagines sexy Afterselia zombies to herself. Moca dumps in two very generous tablespoons of sugar, while under her breath... "Ata... hi... no se... aka..." A half-stifled yawn hijacks her melody, and so Moca goes back to just sparsely humming it.

A board, and a knife. "Lis. You want these apples peeled, or nah?"

"Zombie Rinko... yeah, I'll peel them. You do the peaches." Lisa takes a few moments to find the right drawer and fish out the peeler.

"Zombie Shirokane Rinko, the undead pianist with the world's liveliest hands... we are blessed. Here she graces us with her performance tonight..." Moca carves all the way around the peach deep down to the pit, wriggles the two halves apart, and kind of sloppily cuts the stone loose.

She stares at it a little.

Then she pops it in her mouth to try and get the flesh off.

"Hey, no fair, Moca!"

"Whapth?" It's a genuinely inquisitive-(and-muffled-)sounding "what", like Moca has no idea just what thrall the virgin flesh on a peach stone could hold Lisa in.

"I mean, just, peach..."

"Peach."

"Yeah, peach."

Moca snorts for a solid couple seconds out of the minor hilarity, and then beckons Lisa forth.

Lisa moves her own hands to the side so that the apple-peeling doesn't get in the way of Moca leaning in to transfer a peach stone mouth-to-mouth. Kind of weirdly gross as it is, Lisa doesn't actually have trouble accepting.

It tastes...

...like... Moca's spit, with peach notes underneath. Yep. She doesn't know what she expected.

"Peach?"

Lisa nods. "Peach..."

Somehow, after all of that, Moca finds it in her to roughly dice and dump the peach into the saucepan, while turning off the heat on the butter to let it finish melting and cool a little. Don't wanna start getting butter-scrambled eggs...

Lisa hands over one exquisitely, immaculately peeled apple.

But wait. It ain't. It's kind of a hack job. (Moca peels off a little scrap of skin still left on with her nail.) Eh, she's diplomatic enough to save pointing it out for a more optimally funny occasion.

She did... actually manage to peel the stem off, though. With a peeler.

Huh.

That's kinda impressive. Good technique, Lis.

Moca halves the apple, triangular-prism-cutout cores each half, dices into cubes smaller than the peach, and dumps those in as well, hitting the heat. Lisa, meanwhile, finally lets the peach stone fall straight out of her mouth and into a bin.

"Pfweh. Moca, butter's been good for a bit now. I'm bringing it over."

"Roger that."

"So this goes with the milk and eggs?"

"Yep. And then watch the fruit for me, Lis. I'll mix everything pancake-side."

With impeccably synchronised off-the-cuff choreography, only possible through a deep, instinctive understanding of how her partner dances, Moca attempts to sweep under Lisa's arms and trips over an extended foot, crashing sideways _so_ gracefully to the floor.

"Jesus, Moca!" Lisa's spilled a little bit of the last of the butter on the countertop flinching out of the way. "I'm still holding stuff here!"

Moca's response, picking herself up like a trickle of... molasses, takes a little to buffer. "Oww. Lisa... I just broke _all_ my bones."

Lisa deposits the saucepan in the sink, and is reaching for a frying pan from the cupboard. "Jeez. You know what? That's payback for how you almost broke one of mine." Ooh, this one looks like it's from a matching set with the saucepans. There's a whole assortment of these, jeez... the medium-sized one should do. She pops it down on a now-low heat to better prepare it for imminent pancaking.

"Look, in my defense, Lego gets everywhere..."

Everything in the Aoba household gets everywhere. It's like an entropy hotspot. The walls around Moca's bed probably look like an avant-garde Rorschach nightmare to a forensics team who don't know beforehand it's all just the product of one steamy night.

Lisa begins to gently stir the fruit compote. Moca starts the mixing part of the pancake mix - incorporate the wets, sift the drys, then combine.

"Honestly, though, I didn't even know you owned a Lego set. What have you been building with it?"

"You know how the one you, uh, were sat on--"

" _You_ sat me on it."

"Yeah, that one was black? I only ordered black and red ones so I could try making, like, a Lego Ran wig."

"Lego... Ran?"

"No, a Lego wig of Ran's hair." Moca stops to think for a moment about what a Lego Ran would look like. Lisa stops only very briefly before realising that the thought is awful and shouldn't be in her head at all, and she needs to pay attention to the real world because she's stopped stirring the fruit as a result.

"Did you, like, make it?"

"Yeah... but it was super uncomfy to put on. It felt, uh, like I was being stabbed by a lot of things at once all over my head? So kind of like acupuncture, but really, uh, liney and bad."

"Lego acupuncture, huh?"

"And I showed it off to Hii-chan and Tsugu, and guess what? They laughed. My precious, pained tribute to the, uh... the lead singer of that one teen band, y'know..."

"Yukina."

"Yeah, basically. Oh, yeah, they took a picture, but it's got me making this really miserable face because the wig hurt, so I ain't showin' you. My hair got caught in it and stuff, even, when I tried taking it off. Moca here gives Lego Ran Wig a 1/5. Would not... order from this buyer again."

"So it gets a one at least?"

"Hey, it did kinda look like Ran's hair. It's not down on all counts."

"Hm-hmm. And what did Ran think?"

"Yeah... put it this way: she's the reason that block isn't attached to a wig anymore..."

They have a moment of silence for _such_ a terrible idea.

"Wait, what, so she smashed it?"

"Just, I gave it to her. An' then she held it for a couple seconds and looked at it, and looked at me, an' then she said 'stop fucking with me' an' dropped it on the floor. Looked really surprised when the blocks went everywhere, though. Bet she feels bad about not helping me clean up after, at least."

Lisa closes her eyes solemnly for one more silence, paying respects now to Ran's tortured conscience. Moca smirks.

Back outside of banterland, the batter's pretty well come together at this point. Mocariffic. And hey, nobody ever minded a few lumps here and there, because that's just part of what makes the Mocariffic tick.

From the stove, Lisa glances over. "Looks a little lumpy."

"You mind the Moca lumps? My shame is your shame, Lis, y'know."

"Ahahah, nah, nah, you're good. No shame for anyone here."

"Shaaaaame, Imaaaai, shaaaaaaame..."

"Creepy, Moca. Come over here and look at your fruit."

Moca tries to rest her head on Lisa's shoulder, but a few bumps with her chin demonstrates that tippy-toes is barely short of doing it. "Bend down, Lisaaaa."

"Nothing good followed the last few times I heard that, girl."

"Rating my technique a 1/5 as well, huh? That's cruel..."

"Really? I was more worrying about, like, kancho."

"Eheh. Tempting fate?"

"Moca, you do it now and I'm gonna hurl boiling sugar over both of us, okay?"

"Fiiine." Cue one head of Moca, dejected, passing under Lisa's arm. "Yeah, that's kind of breaking down a little now." There's an uncharacteristic pause -

it lasts, lingers, just a little too long for Moca. "Just like me..."

"Aww, girl, sounds like someone's gotten all state-of-the-selfy this morning. C'mon, Mommy Lisa's here to agony aunt. What's up?"

"...wanna sit down for this? Hit the counter..."

_Oh._

"...yeah, these apples probably need to be left alone, anyways. Go on, take a seat."

Even Moca has downturns every now and again.

 

 

* * *

 

 

It feels like... like as they've sat down, the light diffusing over the room's gotten a little colder - grey-bluer - most likely, cloudier outside... it's kind of like the room's shifted towards dimmer, but crisper, more confessional hues. It does register as a little ironic somewhere in the back of Lisa's mind, but she's just far from full waking enough for her sense of humour not to realise...

Which is good. Laughing at nothing is low on the agenda right now.

The feel of the conversation flows soft like the morning.

"Okay, Moca. For real this time, what's up?"

"For real real?"

"Only the realest."

"I, uh... then I guess it started when I accidentally stole a pastry..."

"..."

"Lis, respond. Where's that 'oh, jeez', or, like, 'Mocaaa' in a really sad voice that I've come to know and love?"

"I'm listening, girl. Just get this off your chest, all in one go. I believe in you."

"Aww. Uhh... so, when I say accidentally, it's like I accidentally didn't realise I had this cream puff pastry in my bag... and I guess neither did Saaya. And I left with it. And then I realised."

"..."

"...and it was busy... and I thought I should maybe go back in and say, but then also it was just a single cream puff, and we're tight, right? No prob. Turn myself in and apologise later. That kind of thing? ...yeah, uh, so I was walking an' got through most of the bag, and then I hit the cream puff, and then the wind kinda blew at me, and then I kinda stood there and it suddenly hit me I actually didn't want to be totally down with this... and, uh... I guess I kind of decided to throw the bag away there, because I thought I didn't deserve it at that point or some kinda whack ass reasoning, and then it hit me I obviously just threw away something I didn't even pay for... and, uh, I dunno, little things don't really usually ever get me down..."

"..." _Keep going, girl._

"Well, I guess it kinda stacked? Because it was still barely sorta rattling in my mind when I got to practice, and, uh, I missed my cue by this one single moment. An' I guess they could see I didn't miss it because I was doin' any kind of japeries, because they were like 'helloooo? Mocaaaa, you theeere?' and I go 'yeah, I'm fine, I'm here', but maybe we've learned to be kind of sensitive when it comes to picking up each other's scents at this point because Tsugu asks there if something's up, and obviously nothing's up. Like, hey, I could just give her some money out of hand an' weave a joke out of it before I tell her it's for Saaya because I accidentally stole a bun puff thing. Genius, Moca."

"..."

"An' what I do instead is startle the freakin' heart out of her by playing a super bomb chord to prove my strength and alrightness, I guess? An' I grin. And now would be the perfect time to follow up, except then Ran tells me to knock it off and go from the top an' she gives me a look that says, _later_."

"..."

"An' later comes. An' when it came Ran was like 'what are you plotting?' because she saw me mess up an' not handle it in a, uh, way, or somethin', an' reckoned I had my dirty work happening in the mischief factory, and, uh, you know how usually all my honesty comes out in that trademark Moca way as standard? Like, it takes somethin' real special to get me working words out straight-ways?"

"..." Lisa gives her an affirming nod.

"So I said I'm a thief now. She asked what that meant. The Moca smirk happened at her. An' I guess she had a bad day beforehand? Because she just frowned and was like 'did you _actually_ steal something?' and of course my response to that is 'naaaah, it wasn't actually _that_  bad'. An' I sounded awful as a result, because to her I obviously did somethin'  _close_ to that bad, right? So Ran's convinced now I stole somethin' and is giving me half a cold shoulder? Like, she tells me to fix my mistakes and of course, uh, it just does not occur to me to explain that actually all I did was accidentally walk out with a pastry I didn't pay for. Just keepin' on with the automatic coy snark instead. And that's how she leaves practice. Uh... hindsight's harsh when it comes to the sitches you get caught up in, right? Man, the what-ifs. Makes me feel unwise as hell."

"..." Another soft, prompting nod.

"So I'm at home when that hindsight kicks in. Duh. Literally explainable in one sentence, huh, right? An' I go to text her, and, uh, yeah... no... I left my phone somewhere. Not on me. Somewhere I don't have the awareness of. An' that just... is the kick in the gut for me, I guess, realising that? Small, solvable but shitty situation, and I find out I can't do it 'cause I'm a dumbass."

"..." Come to think of it.

"An' then you come over, and I kinda slobber on you because right there and then you're the one fresh slate of comfort I have an' I'm bad with not-goodness and you're good with making me feel not bad, an' then we finish off your leftover salad you wanted me to try, an' I love it even if I hafta pick around the jalapenos, an' then we head up to my room, and I kinda just bury my head in ya. In both ways. Haha..."

"..." ...Moca really didn't have her phone out once tonight.

"And, uh, so, yeah, that's it. Present day, present time. I looked at some fruits and just right there rolled kinda off the mood for distractions. So there's my lame lil' feel-bad story out. Uh... moral is, don't lose your phone? New ones're expensive. And, uh, I need to run some money to the Yamabuki house. An' tell Ran all it was, and see what she wants me to do to get some forgiveness. Hopefully. There's a storm goin' on out there, Lis, an' it's only a matter of time before I step back into it to get it reined in. An' Ran'll call me names, an' I'll call her names, an' then we'll laugh and suddenly everything might just seem stupid and it'll all be alright again. 's just hard to see from here, I guess..."

"Mmm."

"Yeah. That's it."

"Little misunderstandings, huh?"

"It's like some kinda... one of those comedy shows with all the freakin' tiny dominoes of unfortunate shit that happens, right? Honestly, though, Lis, really, you were a lifesaver at the perfect time, it's insane."

"How perfect?" Lisa holds her hand around Moca's, in a gesture of assurance that yes, it's okay, the drifting Aoba Moca has a real anchor in this world right here and now,

and Moca only needs a brief pause to grip back tight, and she reaffirms her... well, a lot of things, chief among which being that feeling of safety Lisa's granting her that really invites all those brain ideas back to the figuring-it-out party in her head for a better time than the last.

"I mean... I guess I'd been home stewin' for a few hours already. So it's not like it was top-grade coincidence perfect..."

"D'aww. Poor you."

"But... uh. If you texted me you were coming over and I didn't respond, then sorry, but it sure made a nice surprise, at least, then, I guess?"

"Oh, yeah, I _did_ text. But, you know what, Moca? Half of my messages don't even get marked read and you still know what was in them, so I've kind of started to not really worry about it. We gotta work on communication a bit, maybe. What if you're out cold, and I take for granted you saw my invitation to go for, um, a moonlit walk on the beach or something?"

"Lisa all alone on a beach... her lover far gone, 'yond the rippling ribbon of the moon on the water..."

"Aww, no, girl, don't be dead on me."

"I'm not dead... I'm a moon goddess."

"Huh. So... I just have to walk the moon's reflection to reach you, right?"

"No, Lis, 'cause then _you'll_ die..."

"C'mon, Moca, play along. It'll be fine iiiiif you use your moon goddess powers to make it a real solid path, right?"

"...true..."

"There we go. Doesn't that fill you with good vibes, imagining that?"

"Romance in silver, babe..."

The midnight talking subsides as the kitchen's colour grows warmer again, and fades back to its subdued hints that dawn is coming.

Something else also has subdued hints, speaking of. "Hup." The apple and peach mix is beginning to smell good, and Lisa's quick check confirms it's looking like it everything-elses good as well.

"Alright... it's time. Pancakes."

"How d'you wanna do them, Moca? Oil, or butter, or..." Lisa turns the heat to medium.

"Just straight on the pan. Eye-em-oh."

"You sure? You trust your non-stick to be that non-sticky?"

"Can't be bothered to get butter smell all over me, more like... but yeah."

"Girl. After last night? We both need to take showers anyway."

"Also, butter overload, I guess? Don't want it too greasy..."

"Wow, Moca. Somewhere in you all along was a sense of sensibility."

"Meaaaan..."

"Yeah, nah, but I getcha, girl." Lisa stifles a yawn. "Ladle and spatula, then?"

Takes but a few seconds to rustle those out of where they are, and Moca holds them up in both hands, triumph reigning on her face. Look at the tools, Lisa! Moca foraged these all by herself!

"Well, these're your pancakes, Moca. Take it away."

Moca ladles one good dollop of pancake batter into the pan, and steps back a little unnecessarily (she's just letting it sit, but in a cool, uh, TV chef way).

"Oh, yeah, two plates, right? I found those earlier. Sec."

"Helllll yeaaaah pancake makin'..."

A quiet minute goes by, after Lisa's set down two plates ready to receive shipments.

"Flip?"

"Yeah, sure." Moca shakes the pan a little to try and see if the pancake's sliding (it ain't), and then coaxes it free with just a little underslip of the spatula. "I'm gonna do it freestyle."

"Your call, girl." Lisa's moving out of range of any batter splatter as she says it.

With a slightly weak flick of the pan, hampered maybe by the lack of coordination in arms awake for nearly a whole day attached to somebody who sets up camp so close to the waking unconscious anyway, the first pancake flips a little less than halfway and folds over itself quite sadly.

"Shit."

She immediately gives it a second, more forceful attempt, and this time it just makes it all the way over, except now it's kind of rolled up a little at one end.

"Aww, it's okay, Moca. I'll take that one. Stuff from a batter always tastes better than it looks, y'know."

"No. It's mine. I own my failures now, Lis."

"You know what? Sure, girl. Go get that tiger."

"Huh?"

"I dunno either. Ahaha~."

"Eheheheh."

And in a few seconds, a point of dawnlight begins to glow through the blinds.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Twelve pancakes take about twenty minutes, all told - sped up when Moca decided after the second she could get away with doubling up in the pan. (Just about. She started needing the spatula.)

Down at the table, Lisa's given the apple-peach compote its new home in a nice dessert glass bowl, and she daintly pops down alongside a bottle of Canadian-emblazoned maple syrup just in the nick of time for serving.

And the sight looks fine. Moca's and Lisa's stacks both respectably tall (Moca's propped up a little on one side by the roll), soft to the touch and ready for dressing.

"Man. Think you should snap a picture?"

"I don't think there's enough light in here for that..." But Lisa boots up her camera anyway. "Barely." Tap.

"Post-processing, baby."

"Who?"

" _Magic._ "

With her screen so dim, it's super difficult to tell exactly how the photo looks, but if Moca claims she's a magician, then she's happy to leave it up to the arcane arts.

Putting pressing camera issues aside - the apple and peach is so soft and warm, and if a little spills down the side of the pancakes, all the better. And a glazing of maple syrup on top of that... that's it. Lisa sets down the bottle and looks at her handiwork. That's perfection.

Simple, sleepy perfection.

"Mmm. Wait, maybe a bit of lemon, actually."

Moca watches as Lisa keeps her thinking finger to her mouth, all the way to the fridge to peer into the produce shelf. "Too rich for you, Lis?"

"It's all sugar. Gotta cut through it." (Moca notes how she's cutting a lemon while she says that.) "Why, you don't think so?"

"Nah, I'll take some as well. I'm a glutton with taste..."

"I'd hope. Say I'm not your most delicious snack, and I'll cry, girl."

"Aww. There, there, Lis. Hey, now _I'm_ the parental figure."

"Ahaha~. Cram it. Here's a lemon." Lisa throws over a lemon half, which, exactly as planned, bonks off Moca's head, bounces against the wall and rolls off the table into her lap.

Moca's frozen stiff. "Lucky..."

"Looks like it. Hey, try taking Ran to an arcade - you're totally gonna win her something. How about it?" A seed falls out that Lisa plucks from the syrup.

Moca just kind of gets lemon juice all over her fingers from guarding the surface. "Gonna be the world's most honest here: we got practice today... so maybe we can hit the arcade after."

"You guys have practice two days in a row? You're doing some serious stuff."

"Coming from the one who practices like every day..."

Moca wipes her fingers off with a towel, and then alongside their conversation, they dig in.

A hint of mild sugar, and then it's a full, but accommodating, mellow sweetness, the apples and peach and light pancakes uniting in a cosy warm mouth feel that'd make Lisa feel too comfortable to stay awake, if it weren't for the just-overt-enough flavour.

It tastes like morning. It tastes like someone's home cooking. It tastes like the quiet, tranquil joy of a slightly sneaky early kitchen tryst with her Moca.

"..."

It tastes a bit - well, incoming cliché - but a bit like happiness.

"This is good. Really good! Moca's pancakes are now officially good-ass pancakes. For real, though, you got something planned coming up?"

"Now that'd be talking. Flatter my cookin' abilities all you want, I ain't got a crack in me, Miss Could-be-a-Confectioner-for-a-Living."

Lisa's detecting some attitudinous in her girlfriend. "Taaaalk..."

"Shit, that's some interrogation prowess. Don't know how much longer I can hold on..."

"Taaaaaaalk, Mocaaaa..."

"I give. Poppin'Party wants us on with them next week."

"Oh, nice! What kind of show is it?"

"Just a lil' thing in the park. We're the breather act between their two halves."

"Ooh! Mind if I come see?"

"You can come see when they announce it's happening, Lis..."

"Wait, it's not even been announced? No wonder I didn't hear anything about it..."

"They're real good with their flash stuff, huh?"

"Are they? Their whole big self-sponsored concert was pretty messy to get going, honestly... like, I love the girls, but you gotta wish it went smoother for them than it did."

"But it sure went in the end, right?"

"Ahaha~. Can't say you're wrong there." Lisa glances at Moca's plate - weirdly, in contrast to how she usually puts everything edible in her mouth, she's taking this one in slow, precisely cut and measured bites. "Tired?"

"Kinda, Lis. Kinda..." In a lot of ways, Lisa guesses Moca is thinking on the end there.

"Let's get some good rest after this, then. No-one minded packing on a few pounds from a post-pancake snooze, right?"

"I think our practice is at 3. That's a lotta sleep for you to spend on me..."

"Afternoon? It's, um," Lisa fumbles her phone out, "just past six right now. We're fine, we can take our time. How long's it gonna take to get to your practice? Is it at the old place or CiRCLE?"

"Ryuseido, actually. Long story, an' you've had enough of those, but yeah, we're hanging with the Popipa kids..."

"Not gonna be hard getting all of your...?" Lisa waves her hands a little to get across the idea of 'the Afterglow stuff'.

"They just said we can jack their setup. Tomoe doesn't mind, and Tsugu... I think Tsugu might actually bring her whole keyboard? Stand and everything."

"She's a diligent kid, huh?"

"Drowning in student council work, too. I'm, like, half thinking she's gonna accidentally bring a printout to her keyboard and start trying to play it someday... it's kinda funny to think about, but the, uh, underlying thought... it hurts 'cause it gets you steaming a little too, y'know?"

"Steaming like a lemon."

"Lemons ain't spicy, Lis..."

"Ahahaha~."

"Eh, I guess sour works too. Kind of has the same emotioney notes... just, you worry? Y'know? About everyone. Everyone you... you love."

Moca's always had a faithful struggle with her plainest words.

"Yeah..." Roselia has been a whole new world on a platter for Lisa, worry included.

"But it's okay, right? Things keep going. We end up working it out... off all of, uh, each other, I guess. Remember that conversation a way ways back? Around when Roselia first started. An' I came to you sad about how everyone was falling apart, 'specially Ran...?"

"Yeah. I remember... we were both struggling, huh?"

"At the time, I kind of wondered what you meant when you said stuff went wrong with you an' Yukina... it's kind of amazing how we struck together an' had that conversation at that exact time. Big, fortunate twist of fate. A pretzel fate twist."

"Ahahaha! The heck's that? I like the sound of that!"

"Hey, wow, you said that too. History really is repeating itself."

"Ooh, scary... but, um, yeah... talking to you then helped me kinda figure out my stuff with Yukina. So yeah. Things keep going. We'll figure it out. We all do. I love you, babe."

"Eheh. Yeah..."

Moca lets out a contented sigh.

Lisa's awareness drifts back to the pancakes. Looks like she's nearly done, and so's Moca, who sets down her knife and fork for a bit and gazes over at the warm shine in the window blinds.

"So, Moca, action plan. No way something this tiny's gonna make Ran hate your guts forever, so don't worry. Just say it all straight, okay? Like back then. Say what you said to me, because even if you're roughing each other out, she still cares."

"...roger."

"And then you give Saaya the cream puff money and explain the same, because between you, it really is just a little accident and shouldn't be a big deal. You can afford it, right?"

"Yeah." 250 yen. Moca knows she's got at least that much in pocket change jingling around.

"And then we figure out your phone. I'm thinking, honestly, that you probably left it somewhere, so it's gonna make its way back to you soon enough. We've got a wide friend network, y'know? They can figure out it's your phone, right, with your lockscreen? Want me to drop a message to some key players to get the word going?"

"My lockscreen..." Currently Himari (impromptu) and Ran (coerced) trying to lift Tomoe up for a birthday throw (struggling). "Yeah, maybe. Wait, the notifications should be a huge dead giveaway..."

"Ohh, true. So we're good there."

"If it's actually just misplaced somewhere, though. Not if it fell out an' then a dog ate it..."

"What's the saying? I want to believe, Moca. I wanna believe."

"Still can't believe something this little's gotten to me this big..."

"The little stuff can be hard to grapple with, y'know? 'Cause it's little, so you don't really figure you should properly be thinking about it. If you tried dealing with the little stuff all the time..." She trails off, but in her head, Lisa thinks. _I guess you might be kind of like Yukina, then? She really deals with everything. Everything she's aware of, at least..._

Moca's not a mind-reader, but Yukina came to her mind as well there. "How's Minato doing?"

"Eeehhh...? Uhhh... nothing out of the ordinary right now. Same as always? Haha."

"Hey, that's not the right vocalist."

"It's the truth!"

"What a comfy life, Lisa..."

"Enough with the life! No more talking about anyone's life now! Pancakes only." She taps on Moca's plate.

Moca looks at her plate,

and then Lisa's slender finger bumping against it ("Wouldn't fake nails suit you, Lis?" "Suit, maybe? But they're kind of a pain to take off, ahaha."), and all the way up Lisa's pale, toned arm, to her dishevelled dress's strap sitting shamefully crumpled on her shoulder, along the blade, up her neck (bearing what Moca's inner judge panel would dub "no shortage of marks" if they were wanted right now), and finally rests on Lisa's patient, expecting expression.

Lisa's patience and expectation for _her_.

...as far as she's concerned, there's not really much that needs to be said right now, is there?

Maybe nothing more than "just let me look at you for a bit".

 

Moca does finish her pancakes, eventually.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Still in their crumples and creases, Moca and Lisa slip back into bed. Before they know it, sleep comes to them, loosely held in each other's arms, and they fall apart once they've nodded off, Moca's arm resting on top of Lisa's, and one of Lisa's legs hanging out of the sheets.

Cracks, strong signs of daylight, are seeping in through the curtains.

**Author's Note:**

> "Ran! Sorry. About, uh, yesterday. Long and short of it is, I accidentally had an extra pastry in my Yamabuki grab-bag that Saaya didn't notice, an' neither did I until it was too late, and that's all that was, but it kind of bummed me I didn't pay for it, an' I'm gonna pay for it later. Also, uh, my phone went missing yesterday too, but Moca's chill and won't freak out until it's gone for 72 hours, after which the constitution says I can legally start screamin' an' kicking your doors down."  
> "...pff. Pffhahaha."  
> "What?"  
> "I get it now, Moca. I got a text from Lisa earlier saying to be nice to you."
> 
> (this one's a fairly long, conversational, ramblesome one. i hope you enjoyed it! // Moca's pancake procedure should actually be followable, roughly)
> 
> "Lisaaaa, goddamniiiiit... but thank you... but god _damniiiiit_..."  
> "Um, also, I think Saaya's holding onto your phone for safekeeping... you wanna head in now to get it?"  
> "Wow. Just gimme a sec, Ran. Moca's never felt more zen in her life right now."


End file.
